April 2010

Developments in Indian Country

April 30, 2010

The Ninth Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues concludes today after eleven days.  Among the documents produced, according to Indian Country Today was a “groundbreaking report examining the roots of Christian domination over indigenous peoples and their lands”: North American Representative to the Permanent Forum Tonya Gonnella Frichner, an attorney and [...]

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Jazz Is 1

April 29, 2010

Composition: Egzekutor Tomasz Stanko – trumpet Justyna Steczkowska – vocalise Janusz Skowron – synthesizer Slawomir Kurkiewicz – bass Michal Miskiewicz – percussion Zbigniew Brysiak – drums Recorded: in Warsaw, Poland 2001 Share Tweet Subscribe to comments on this post Email

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Patriots, Globophiles, and Fools

April 28, 2010

So the other day I wrote a bit about the conformist emotions and manipulations often found in conservative-style patriotism. It isn’t enough to organize against government policies considered objectionable – the organization need be one of tea party patriots. Those against whom conservatives organize cannot simply be mistaken or wrongheaded – they must by styled [...]

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Talk Amongst Yourselves

April 27, 2010

Some times real life intervenes. Share Tweet Subscribe to comments on this post Email

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Real American Stories

April 26, 2010

The Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks produced The Pacific is an estimable effort, but has failed, unlike its predecessor, Band of Brothers – about the war in Europe – to produce a cohesive, overarching narrative and vision of the Pacific war. BOB, based on Steven Ambrose’s book about the real life Easy Company, began with [...]

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Sunday Blog Wrap

April 25, 2010

The Economist – The limits of freedom and faith From the UN Human Rights Council, another battle in the war of ideas, the weapon is words, demonstrating why we need to be clear about the nature of liberalism and liberty, including the distinction between religious liberty and religious imposition: For secularists (in the broad sense [...]

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How We Lived on It (17) – California’s Imperial Valley

April 24, 2010

Video:  TitoAC Music: Explosions in the Sky – “Your Hand in Mine” Share Tweet Subscribe to comments on this post Email

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The Prejudice against Bias

April 23, 2010

The other day ShrinkWrapped mused a bit about the nature and effect of our human biases in the political sphere, and offered, among other thoughts, that his desire to check them in himself is a reason that he engages with me in our Open Mind series. He also thinks that the challenges of strong argument [...]

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Unveiling a Full Ban on Full Veils

April 22, 2010

The New York Times reports on French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s plan to introduce a bill in May to ban the wearing of the full veil in public places in France including from streets, markets and shops, according to his spokesman, Luc Chatel. Sarkozy intends the bill, a follow up to the 2004 ban on conspicuous [...]

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Earth Day Climate Change Conference

April 21, 2010

Officially titled the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, the conference, running from April 19 though tomorrow is being hosted by President Evo Morales of Bolivia, which has the only majority indigenous population in the Western Hemisphere, at approximately 55%. The following press release from the Indigenous Environmental Network [...]

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Instaidiocy

April 20, 2010

I don’t know – if the brave new world of amateur internet information-and-idea-sharing (i.e. blogs) brings us big name blogs (BNB, like MSM – come on, “mainstream media”; are you not reading your BNBs?) who offer us the following, are we really heading into the future better led than by The New York Times? From [...]

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Public Space and Personal Prerogative

April 19, 2010

One of my pleasures in reading Norm Geras, over at Normblog across the pond, is that I very close to always agree with him, a pleasure in self-confirmation I do not pursue with excessive regularity. However, I stumbled upon a point of disagreement, and Norm has responded to my partial dissent from his views on [...]

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Blogs to Speak Of

April 18, 2010

Some blogs you might wish to explore – not, in the main, big names, though some are higher profile than others. The big names blog readers read when they read big name blogs readers can find themselves because those bloggers are, well, big names. And generally American. If you’re American. Here, some are and are [...]

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Eating Poetry (XII) – Grief

April 17, 2010

Grief There used to be ways to mourn the ones you lose, like dressing in Victorian black the rest of your life or taking a week off work. Grieving’s still called a process by some who think you need to take it one step at a time one step after the other till the pit [...]

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The Dark Backward

April 16, 2010

What seest thou else In the dark backward and abysm of time? If thou remember’st aught ere thou camest here, How thou camest here thou mayst. Prospero, Act 1, Scene 1, The Tempest Over the past week, the general media have begun to report – Sixty Minutes this past Sunday, The New York Times last [...]

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The Continuing Struggle for Democracy

April 16, 2010

One of the many benefits of travel is that it broadens human connection. Visit a place, meet its people, pick up a little the rhythms of daily life, and you care in ways you did not care before. Many people who spend time in Southeast Asia find in it the geography of long-imagined paradise. But [...]

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U.K. Climatologists Not Part of Leftist-Nazi Cabal

April 15, 2010

The New York Times reports that a second independent panel, of scientists has cleared climate researchers at the University of East Anglia of allegations that they distorted the scientific evidence for human-caused global warming. “There was no hint of tailoring results to a particular agenda,” an independent panel of scientists said in a report submitted [...]

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Tea Party Polling

April 14, 2010

From The New York Times/CBS. My quick hits. Tea party supporters are wealthier and more well-educated than the general public, tend to be Republican, white, male, and married, and their strong opposition to the Obama administration is more rooted in political ideology than anxiety about their personal economic situation Well, knock me over. And while [...]

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Two Kinds of Amnesty

April 14, 2010

I’ve become bogged down with other work today, so I offer these two brief  pointers to coverage elsewhere. I plan to write again soon on the fatal drift of Amnesty International away from its original wisdom and spirit. The latest, very great series of misadventures has been covered much more in England, where they have [...]

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Veils of Ignorance

April 13, 2010

Over at Normblog today, Norm considers the situation of a Quebec Muslim woman ordered to unveil or leave French course, as the Globe and Mail headlined it. Norm thinks the order of the Quebec (? – this was unclear from the G&M story) Immigration Department an instance of “rank, crass illiberalism.” Norm has written about [...]

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Yom Hashoah

April 12, 2010

Yom Hashoah is Holocaust Remembrance Day, in Israel and amongst Jews. You can learn a little bit about the day and its origins here. You can get a sense of just how profoundly the day is experienced in Israel from Yaacov Lozowick. The day is a day of remembrance. Human beings find much of their [...]

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